Dirty words. Yes, about Michael Jackson.

The night Michael Jackson died, Lil E was introduced to him. As the news was breaking on CNN, I was camped out on the couch with my son and my laptop, furiously trying to get up a post on his death. Lil E is quite used to the spontaneous ways I sometimes am called to work, and he invested himself in the story as much as I did. He watched, listened, peered over my shoulder at the images I was choosing.

And he asked questions. Lots and lots of questions. I tried to answer them all, but we all know there are many, many mysterious surrounding Michael Jackson that are probably left un-probed, particularly for a wide-eyed preschooler. I have this honesty policy with my child and so I answered as much and as best as I could for his age and for the time I had in between cutting and pasting links.

Once the conversation about him began, Michael Jackson seemed to move right into our home and daily life. Just the other day, weeks and weeks since the singer was memorialized but strikingly close to the day when he was finally (finally!) laid to rest, Lil E emerged from the bathroom with his hands up in the air surgical style.

I looked at him quizzically.

"I went potty but I cannot wash my hands" he explained in voice that would lead one to believe he had a very rational reason for letting those germs settle into his palms.

I couldn't ask.

"There is some kind of brownish-peachish powder on the sink." This time, his rationale was laced with the furrowed eyebrows of concern.

Still quiet, I went into the bathroom and investigated.

"It's make-up," I said, wiping it up with a sponge as I explained. "I must have spilled some powder on the counter. Big deal."

"I didn't want to touch it!" His response was too quick, perhaps slightly dramatized. But then his words eased back to that calm, cool, a-duh tone as he stared at me, rolled his eyes and left the room. "I don't want to end up looking like Michael Jackson!"

My make-up wasn't exactly jumping up to smother his little face and from what I could tell, his button nose was still attached to his dimpled cheeks. Still, he had a point.

Moments like these join the times we crank our homemade Michael Jackson mix in the car. Several days a week, we spend our commute singing and dancing in our seats to "ABC" and "Billie Jean" and many other big hits. He has a special head shake down that he'll only do when the Jackson 5 belt out, "Shake it, shake it, baby!" and he has complex interpretations of what the lyrics really mean.

All this love is met by a bit of hate -- or at least uncertainty -- about a song that I am not sure why I included on the mix. The song is "Dirty Diana" and maybe it's that I thought he'd get a kick out of that title without grasping the connotation it has.

Instead, the song just seemed to scare him. For weeks, as soon as the first few beats blared from the car stereo, he'd shout above them, "Change it! Change it!" This went on until I automatically skipped it before the track number even popped up.

"I'm curious why you don't like that song," I said one day as I breezed on to "Beat It."

"I just...well...it's just that..." He had something to say but wasn't sure I'd want to hear it. I told him with my silence it was OK to spill.

"I don't want to sing a song about...." He whispered the rest. "...diarrhea."

"Ummm, what?" I couldn't even look at him in the rear view mirror. I was afraid I'd laugh and I really needed to hear the answer.

"The song is about..." Again with the whispers. "...dirty diarrhea. You think that's gross, Mommy!"

I wasn't sure what was stranger and more hilarious to me in that response -- that he thought the song title was about potty stuff and not a naughty kind of gal or that he wanted to skip the song to protect my own sensitivities to bathroom activity talk.

I don't even like to use that d-word, and he knows it. Most of the time, it delights him and prompts the seemingly involuntary and irritating preschool behavior of saying the word on a loop for twenty or thirty minutes (or as least as long as he can handle it until folding into heap of giggles and self-delight).

Regardless, the kid not only was both confused and compelled by the boy singer who grew up to be covered in prosthetics and powder, he was also simultaneously appalled and understanding of the man who sang a hit about poop.

"Oh, honey." It was all I could say until we got swept up in the Ma-Ma Se
Ma-Ma Sa Ma-Ma Coo Sas.

A few commutes later, Lil E spied my finger poised over the skip button as the song approached.

"Wait!," he yelled out. "I want to hear that song."
"Which song?" I asked. I was egging him on. I knew that I was.

"Dirty Donorrhea!" He said it proudly.

I turned back to look at him. That quizzical look was back on my face.

"DIR-TYYYY DON-OHHH-RRHEAHHHHH!" He sang it this time. 

Was it correct? No. Was it about still about tummy troubles? Who knows? Was he getting the real implication of the title more than I knew? I don't think so. Still, he had a point. Another very valid Michael Jackson point.

Whether she had donorrhea or that other d-word I avoid saying almost as much as I avoid contracting the other d-word, Diana probably was feeling pretty dirty. She probably just needed to ask Michael Jackson to wipe up his make-up so she could wash her hands. Maybe even scrub them.

There will clearly be more to explain about this song and others that the King of Pop is singing to us from beyond the grave. For now, though, the kid thinks he knows MJ. And if that gets a little...well, messy, then I am OK with that. Just as long as he doesn't try to cover any of it up with one tiny, shiny glove.